The Jewish Annotated New Testament (80 page)

5
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we
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have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
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through whom we have obtained access
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to this grace in which we stand; and we
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boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
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And not only that, but wee also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
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and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
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and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

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For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
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Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die.
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But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.
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Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.
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10
For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.
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But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

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Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned—
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sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law.
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Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.

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But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.
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And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification.
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If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

¹⁸
Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.
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For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
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But law came in, with the result that the trespass multiplied; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
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so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification
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leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

6
What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?
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By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?
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Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
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Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

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For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
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We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.
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For whoever has died is freed from sin.
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But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
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We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.
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The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
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So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

¹²
Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.
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No longer present your members to sin as instruments
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of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments
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of righteousness.
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For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

¹⁵
What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
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Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
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But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted,
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and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
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I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations.
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For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

²⁰
When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
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So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death.
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But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life.
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For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

7
Do you not know, brothers and sisters
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— for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only during that person’s lifetime?
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Thus a married woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies, she is discharged from the law concerning the husband.
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Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress.

⁴
In the same way, my friends,
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you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.
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While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.
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But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.

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What then should we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
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But sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead.
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I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived
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and I died, and the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.
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For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
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So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.

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Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

¹⁴
For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin.
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15
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
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Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good.
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But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.
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For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.
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For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.
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Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

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So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.
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For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self,
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but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
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Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
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Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.

8
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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For the law of the Spirit
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of life in Christ Jesus has set you
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free from the law of sin and of death.
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For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin,
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he condemned sin in the flesh,
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so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
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5
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit
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set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
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6
To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit
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is life and peace.
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For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot,
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and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.